


Between the Desire and the Spasm

by stele3



Category: Captain America (Movies), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Daemons, Gen, injury to an animal (sorta), self-harm (sorta)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4811972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything I know about His Dark Materials I learned from fandom. Apologies for any mistakes.</p><p>Steve's daemon is a hummingbird; Bucky's is a black bear; Sam's is a gecko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Desire and the Spasm

As soon as he woke in the hospital, Steve insisted on going straight home. It took Sam and Natasha both, along with the fact that he couldn’t goddamn _walk_ , to keep him laid up for another day.  
  
“He’ll come to me,” Steve said that night, perched on the edge of his bed and awkwardly holding his gown closed at his hip while the done-with-this nurse checked his bullet wounds. On her perch by the window, [Creidne](http://www.birdsandblooms.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Broad-billed-hummingbird-by-lazer29.jpg) ruffled her feathers indignantly. “He will. He pulled me out of the water.”  
  
Sam waited until the nurse left then pulled up the shaky video someone had taken of a shaggy black bear dragging Creidne, then Steve, out of the Potomac River. Creidne zipped over and landed on Steve’s shoulder. “Where the fuck is Bucky?” she demanded, speaking for the first time since Steve had woken up. Sam gritted his teeth. “I don’t fucking see him–but that’s Amma, he has to be close–”  
  
She cut off and Steve sucked in a breath as another figure, dressed in black, emerged from the water. Lightning-quick for her size, the bear daemon whipped around to face him.  
  
The video had no sound, but the bear’s lowered head and tense stance left no doubt as to her meaning.  
  
-o-

As it turned out, Steve was right–except in all the ways that counted.

They’d barely reached the roundabout in front of Sam’s house before Creidne starts zinging around the inside of the car and cursing at the top of her shrill little Brooklyn accent. “STOP THE FUCKIN’ CAR, STOP, FUCKIN’ STOP YOU DICKHEAD OR I’LL STAB YOU IN THE FUCKIN’ BALLS–”

“Jesus Christ,“ Sam choked, hunched close to the wheel. Between the Winter Soldier and Steve’s hyper-aggro daemon, everybody apparently wanted to get him into a head-on. 

Steve opened his door before the car even stopped all the way, and then he and Creidne were racing each other across the street to, shit, a hunched black shape in the roadway. Sam got out his gun and followed, scanning the buildings around them. Not that it did much good: if this guy was half as good as Nat said, no way would they see him. 

Apparently Steve had maybe half an ounce of goddamn sense left, because he’d slowed down and got the shield out, herded Creidne behind it. She’d probably have the best chance of any to dodge a sniper bullet–but she seemed pretty much completely focused on the shape currently hunched in the mouth of an alleyway.

“Amma?” Steve asked, dropping into a crouch. “Do you know who we are?”

There came a soft animal keen that raised the short hairs on Sam’s arms, and then a bear, thin and bedraggled, eased into the open. She should have been an impressive creature; but her ribs shown and her fur was matted and even missing in places. A fresh wound on her front paw leaked golden blood with every step. She slunk forward almost on her belly, flinching when Creidne apparently got impatient and darted out to hover over her head. 

“Amma,” Steve choked.

“I am gonna kill so many fuckin’ people,” Creidne swore. “Steve, fuck, she’s _hurt_.”

“Steve,” Sam warned, still looking up. “He’s gotta be close, he–”

“He did it.” They all turned at the weak voice. Amma had reached Steve by now, who’d lowered the shield. She kept coming and Sam twitched hard as she _butted right against Steve’s chest_. Steve’s mouth fell open. He dropped his hand to her back, snatched it away, then slowly put it back. 

“He did it,” Amma repeated dully, settling against Steve with the finality of a limit reached. Creidne fluttered down to settle on Steve’s shoulder “He cut me, to keep me from coming to you. Please don’t let him take me back to them. I hate him.”

-o-

She wouldn’t say anything else–couldn’t, really, from the looks of it. Steve, white-faced and glassy-eyed with shock, had to carry her into the house. They settled on the couch with a _whump_ ; Creidne, momentarily displaced by the sudden dip in her perch, skimmed around the room and hovered briefly near each window before circling back to Steve and Amma.

For a moment Sam considered calling someone–but who? Tell them what? He shot Nat a quick text then, after some more thought, went into the kitchen for a sandwich.

As he did so, he felt and heard the zipper of the fannypack he wore at his waist shift. Moments later, [Lais](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/8/5/1249484825280/Day-gecko-001.jpg) skittered up the back of his shirt and wrapped her tail around his ear. 

“Dude,” she said eloquently. “ _Dude_.”

From the living room there came the sound of soft voices, interspersed with f-bombs from Creidne. “You’re telling me,” Sam muttered back.


End file.
